ESPN Olympic Sports

Chloe Sutton turned 20 this week with a unique goal in sight. If all goes well for the next few months, she could become the first U.S. swimmer to have made Olympic teams in both open water and pool events.

Sutton, who swims for the Mission Viejo (Calif.) Nadadores club, blazed onto the open water scene at age 14 and over the next two years would win gold in the 10K at the Pan American and Pan Pacific Games and a bronze medal in the 5K at the 2008 World Championships. Sutton was the only U.S. woman to compete in the 10K race in Beijing in 2008, the first year the grueling discipline of open water was included in the Summer Games, and finished 22nd.

But by 2010, Sutton's double life was wearing thin. When she qualified for the open water worlds and the Pan Pac pool team -- events that were three weeks apart -- her coach, the venerable Bill Rose, asked where her heart was and Sutton put open water aside.

[+] Enlarge
Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesChloe Sutton will vie for spots in the 400 and 800 at the Olympic trials in late June.

"She was never not a pool swimmer," Rose said. "Ninety-eight percent of her training was in the pool and geared for the pool." Sutton benefitted confidence-wise from her early success and grew because of her experience at the top level internationally in open water, Rose said.

Sutton has won the 400 in national and international competition and is a two-time national champion in the 800 since targeting the pool, but she's still in transition. Like many open water swimmers, she used a two-beat kick, but Rose has phased that out in favor of a six-beat kick to bump up her speed, asking her to give up her old two-beat cadence even in training. Sutton just completed that changeover and is racing both events with her revamped stroke now, but won't see what happens in a tapered meet until the Olympic trials in late June.

Rose said he thinks it will take an 8:18 to get on the Olympic podium in the 800 -- six seconds faster than Sutton's personal best, but achievable, he said.

"I have to give her so much credit," Rose said. "She has her eye on the prize. She lives the sport."

(Read full post)